


12x23 Coda

by MarvelsAssbutts



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 21:39:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11044875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarvelsAssbutts/pseuds/MarvelsAssbutts
Summary: Castiel requests to see his family one last time.





	12x23 Coda

Castiel’s eyes shot open and quickly shut again when he was met with a blinding white light. He kept them closed for several minutes, his mind trying to piece together what had happened only a while before. He had passed through the split in space and time and had seen Sam and Dean standing in front of him. They looked relieved. Happy. They had won. Lucifer was gone - although it came with the unfortunate price of losing Crowley, something Castiel didn’t quite know how to process yet - and his child born. Everything was as it should be. So why was it so quiet? Why were there no celebratory cheers or the cries of a child that had just been brought into the world.

Castiel opened his eyes again, slowly, and let them scan the area around him. It was white. White in every direction. Above him, to his left, and to his right he was surrounded by nothingness. He frowned and brought himself into a sitting position, groaning at the unwelcome and mysterious pain that built in his chest when he did so. He placed a hand against it and looked down. Carefully, he undid the buttons of his dress shirt and looked down at his bare chest. There were no marks. No indication that sitting up was a warrant for pain. Gently he rubbed his hand against his chest before buttoning his shirt back up and getting to his feet. He looked around his area once more, hoping to find some explanation for where he was. Another dimension maybe? Had the birth of the Jack ripped another hole in space in time. And if so, were Sam and Dean close enough to this rip to join him? Or were they still safe on earth?

“Dean?” Castiel called out. “Sam?” His voice seemed dense. There was no echo, it was like he was inside some sort of enclosure and sound was not allowed past the four walls he was trapped behind. Still, he persisted. “Dean! Sam!” His voice was more panicked now as he moved through the never ending white. “SAM!” he screamed and started running. Something wasn’t right. This wasn’t another dimension, something was not right _. “DEAN!_ Dean, _please!”_ His voice cracked as he fell to the ground, the disgustingly white ground. “Please, if you’re there…. Please answer me. Pleas-”

“Castiel.”

The angel swiftly turned around, getting to his feet as he did so. “De-” It was shock that cut him off, made his voice stop and his words get caught in his throat. It had been three years - and even that one encounter wasn’t certain - since he had last seen him and the fact that he was standing here before him now didn’t seem to make sense. Was this white desert his doing?

“Gabriel,” Castiel breathed. “Is it- Is it really you?”

Gabriel only stared at Castiel which made the latter of the two become increasingly uneasy. He kept his eyes on Castiel and the younger of the two could have sworn they were watering. Gabriel’s face was contorted into a look of pain and confusion for reason’s Castiel couldn’t decipher. Why was he looking at him like that? With pity and sadness and anger? Why were those the emotions Castiel was seeing on his brother’s face when a reunion like this should have included joy and embraces and smiles.

“Unfortunately,” Gabriel finally whispered in an answer to Castiel’s question.

Castiel felt his eyes narrow and his head tilt. “Why is that unfortunate, Gabriel? We’re brothers. We should be happy to see one another.”

“Not here,” he replied with a crack in his voice. “Not like this. Not now.”

Castiel frowned. “Gabriel?”

His brother shook his head and the pity and sadness faded away until there was only anger left. “Don’t tell me it was for them.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t tell me you gave your _life_ for the Super Winchester Brothers,” he growled out. “For those selfish pieces of human _crap_ who did nothing but- but _abuse_ you!”

“Be careful how you speak of them,” Castiel snapped back and made a gesture to call for his angel blade. But it didn’t appear. He looked down at his empty hand and felt his confusion at this situation only grow. As he stared at his hand, Gabriel’s words rang back loudly in his head. _“Don’t tell me you gave your life….”_

Castiel’s head snapped up to his brother, his expression was still filled with rage but upon seeing the fear in his younger brother’s eyes it started to soften.

“Send me back.”

“Castiel-”

“Gabriel, I have to make sure they’re okay! I have to keep them safe! Lucifer’s child has been born. I swore to watch over him! He could- Anything could happen without the proper guidance! Anything could happen to Sam and Dean, send me back!”

“If I had the power to do that, do you think I’d still be here? Do you think I’d be working the job of helping angels cross over? Castiel-”

“I’m not going,” he whispered fiercely. “I need to be with Sam an-and Dean! I need- Gabriel, that’s my family!”

“Family is not supposed to get you killed.”

“Remind me again how you were bested, Gabriel,” Castiel replied sharply and watched as Gabriel took on a defensive stance. Castiel closed his eyes for a moment before letting out a long sigh. “Brother, please. At least let me make sure they’re safe, that the child hasn’t done them any harm. Please let me walk away from them positive that I didn’t leave them stranded and backed into death’s corner. Please.”

Gabriel’s eyes traced Castiel’s face carefully as his mind battled against itself on what he should do. Gabriel had never let anyone go back and see what they had left behind. It was too dangerous and could damage whatever little resolve a being had left within themselves upon finding out they were dead. Castiel was better off just moving forward, Gabriel knew that and part of him believed Castiel knew that too, but the desperation that shone through his brother’s eyes, the horrible plea to make sure the humans he loved so dearly were safe, was enough for Gabriel to cave.

“Be quick, Castiel.”

“Of course,” he said with a nod and with a snap of Gabriel’s fingers, he was back on earth. Immediately he started making his way towards the house that he knew held the child. There was no doubt Jack had been born already and was awaiting his chance to spring forward head first into this unknown world. Castiel had been shown a future of paradise and serenity but, as the Winchesters had proved dozens of times, just because something is _said_ there is no guarantee that it will _be._ Castiel had his foot on the first step up towards the back door when he heard the small, nearly inaudible sound of his name. He stopped climbing the stairs and turned to face the source of the noise. The sight that met his eyes was enough to make him regret his choice of coming back to earth. He could have gone millennia without the image of Dean kneeled over his dead body - wings burnt harshly into the ground - displayed before him and yet, here it was.

“Cas,” the sound of his name rang through again and Castiel hesitantly started over to the hunter. “Come on, man,” he whispered. “Come on, d-don’t-” He closed his eyes and that’s when Castiel noticed the tears that were silently falling down his face. “Castiel, get up,” he said in the same hushed tone. “You’ve done it before, do it again. Get _up.”_

“Dean….”

Dean turned his head away from Castiel’s body and clenched his teeth together, visibly trying to hold back whatever noise of agony was trying to escape. Castiel watched as his fingers dug into his thighs and his chest rose and fell rapidly as he tried to calm himself down. He leaned forward, almost doubling over, and let out a whine - one that wasn’t supposed to come out and was filled with pain - before falling back onto his heels and finally letting that horrible sob break through. It shook his whole body. The force of it moved through every fiber of his person and did enough to take his breath away. Castiel watched in despair as he watched Dean battle between releasing his emotions and keeping them locked away in that secret part of him, the part that was rarely opened and buried deep inside him.

He kept his head turned away from Castiel’s body but slowly, and with a shaking hand, reached out to touch the vessel that had contained Castiel’s essence. When Dean’s hand moved over Castiel’s chest it stayed still but only for a moment before it clenched itself into a fist, bunching up Castiel’s buttondown as it tightened around the fabric.

“S-Sam,” Dean cried out weakly and looked towards the house. “Sam!” he called again, tears still falling down his face and chest heaving rapidly. When he didn’t get a response for a second time, Castiel saw the walls that had sheltered Dean for so long finally start to fall down. He was scared, he was alone. He was panicking. _“SAM!”_ he screamed and let out another harsh sob. Castiel looked towards the house and started for it once more, all the while listening to Dean scream his brother’s name so harshly that it made Castiel want to press his hands over his ears. He couldn’t stand the sound of Dean in pain. He couldn’t stand the fact that he was the one causing Dean Winchester to sound like that. Castiel quickly made his way into the house and up the stairs into Jack’s nursery. Sam was standing in the center of the room, his eyes red and watering as he stared at the child in the corner.

“Bring him back,” Sam hissed. “You need to bring him back, you don’t understand.”

“Sam.” Castiel stepped further into the room and stood in front of the younger Winchester. “Sam, enough. Forget about me, get Dean and get out of here! Sam, you have to leave, you don’t know what he’s capable of!”

“All of this,” Sam said and held his arms out, “is because of you,” he snarled and pointed right through Castiel. “So you’re going to get up, you’re going to go out there, and you’re going to bring him back. Then, you’re going to open that damn portal and you’re going to get my mom back. You’re going to fix this. Get. The hell. _UP!”_

Castiel opened his mouth in a fruitless effort to warn Sam that he should not order the child of Lucifer to do anything but was met with the sight of endless white before he was able to do so.

“NO!” he yelled and turned around to meet his brother’s eyes. “Gabriel, I wasn’t finished!”

“There was nothing you could _do,_ Castiel. They couldn’t hear you or feel you or see you. I had to bring you back before you went insane.”

“I- No! Send me back, I have to- I- Gabriel-”

The archangel shook his head and Castiel felt as if someone had reached deep within him and snatched his entire essence out.

“But…. Gabriel,” he whispered. “Dean.”

Gabriel grimaced at his younger brother and looked away. “You weren’t meant to see that, Castiel. There are reasons I don’t send you all back.”

“Gabriel, I can’t leave.” Gabriel sighed and stepped closer to his brother before placing a hand on his shoulder. Castiel looked up into his eyes and shook his head. “I can’t leave,” he repeated. “Please don’t make me leave them,” Castiel pleaded, vaguely aware of the tears falling from his eyes. “Please don’t do that to me, Gabriel, please.” He took in a jagged breath. “Gabriel, please, I-I realize- Gabriel, I finally realize I’m _loved by them.”_ Castiel’s brother closed his eyes and moved his hands over his face. “I know now that the need goes both ways, Gabriel, please!”

Gabriel shook his head yet again and slowly lowered his hands from his face. “Castiel, I can do _nothing._ I’m sorry but I have no power to give you your life back. Brother, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Castiel let Gabriel’s words sink it, he let them really hit him before he felt himself deflate. He wasn’t getting back. He wasn’t going to be able to live any more days by the side of Sam and Dean. He would never hear the rumble of the Impala or the deep sound of their laughter. He would never look into their eyes again or feel the weight of Dean’s hand on his shoulder or the feeling of Sam’s hand on his cheek. They were gone from his life. From his existence. Dean and Sam Winchester were permanently stuck in Castiel’s past and the future he was once promised was now forbidden to him. His family was separated by a border that neither one of them could pass.

Castiel allowed Gabriel to lead him, to show him the way to an angel’s next step once their life was gone. The door to the other side was bright and shining and emitted off a comfortable warmth that Castiel, unfortunately, was numb to.

“They’ll be okay, Cassie,” Gabriel said softly. “The Winchesters always are,” he added on in a voice that Castiel couldn’t help but feel was somewhat spiteful. “You’ve done your job in protecting them. It’s time for you to rest.”

Castiel looked into the doorway before looking over his shoulder. He couldn’t make sense of where he was or where he had come from but he knew that home was behind him and whatever lied ahead was a falsity and a facade. He turned back towards the doorway, squared his shoulders, and took one step forward.

His breath caught in his throat and his it tightened with the warning of fresh tears.

“Castiel?” Gabriel asked. “What is it?”

Castiel, still staring into the doorway, brought a hand up to his chest. He pressed it firmly there as a dull warmth spread throughout him. His mind filled with the most astounding shade of green - one that was bright and flowing and mixed itself in with shades of gold and white, forever moving and creating new designs - as the warmth pulsed rhythmically through him. His hand clasped the clothing stretched across his chest and he pushed out a slow and steady breath.

“Dean.” A tear slipped down his cheek.

“What about him?”

Castiel’s mouth turned up in the slightest of smiles, one that was neither happy nor sad, but content. His smile expressed comfort and calmness. Thankfulness and reassurance.

“He’s praying.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Please leave kudos and comments they make me super happy!


End file.
